E. Barrett Prettyman Jr.

Prettyman was born in Washington, D.C. His father was United States federal judge E. Barrett Prettyman.[1][2]

Prettyman graduated from St. Albans School in Washington, D.C. He then served in the United States Army in Europe during World War II. In 1949, he graduated from Yale University. He then worked as a journalist for two years in Rhode Island. In 1953, he received a law degree from the University of Virginia Law School.[3]

Prettyman served as law clerk to United States Supreme Court justices Robert H. Jackson, Felix Frankfurter, and John Marshall Harlan II. He then practiced law in Washington, D.C. In 1962, he negotiated an agreement with Fidel Castro to secure the release of prisoners involved in the Bay of Pigs invasion. He served as special counsel to the United States House of Representatives Ethics Committee in the 1980s involving the Abscam investigation.

Prettyman died in a hospital in Washington, D.C. from a respiratory ailment.[1] He is buried at Rockville Cemetery in Rockville, Maryland.

• List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States (Seat 2)
• List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States (Seat 9)

• E. Barrett Prettyman papers at the University of Maryland Libraries